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Cruisin’ with Clark
First of all, let me apologize for not posting a Gossip Friday last week…I didn’t realize how much they would be missed, thank you for your feedback, everyone! Gossip Fridays will no longer be a weekly feature, but will still pop up from time to time when I find a good one. I’ve used all my best stuff plus I’m eight months pregnant so I need to slow down a bit! I visited the High Museum in Atlanta this past weekend for their special exhibit called “The Allure of the Automobile”. I generally have no interest in car shows but this one contained two of Clark’s cars so I was…
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Gossip Friday: Harlow’s Fans
Here’s some gossip on one of Clark’s favorite leading ladies, the legendary Jean Harlow, from May 1935: It was a shock to discover, through the accurate records of Mrs. Ethel Webb, Jean Harlow’s efficient secretary, that in 1933 twenty-five percent of all Miss Harlow’s fan mail came from men, while the other seventy-five percent was dashed off by feminine hands. In 1934 the ratio was twenty percent to eighty. Having labored under the conviction that the Harlow appeal was, of all the stars in Hollywood, most evidently for males, the only explanation I could offer for the feminine pre-ponderance of interest was that most men are inept correspondents. But Mrs.…
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Gossip Friday: Serving Carole
Since Sunday is the 71st anniversary of Clark and Carole’s marriage, here’s some gossip on her from 1940: When the “They Knew What They Wanted” company had to go to Napa, California, for a two weeks’ location trip, most of the company lived in tents. But Carole Lombard decided that tenting was not to her liking and in as much as there wasn’t a hotel in Napa she stayed at a ranch nearby. Every night when she came back to the ranch for dinner after a day on location she noticed she was waited on by a different servant. On the fourth night, when she noticed the fourth change in…
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Gossip Friday: Miss Rutherford’s collection
Here’s one about Ann Rutherford, who played Carreen O’Hara in Gone with the Wind, from September 1940: Cute little Ann Rutherford has something new in charm necklaces. The necklace is made of miniature car license numbers of her favorite actors. Among them are Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Jimmy Stewart and Mickey Rooney.
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Gossip Friday: Praise from a Barrymore
Since the Oscars were Sunday…”Look Lionel, what I’ve got!” From October 1940: These Barrymores are picturesque mimes. A question to Jack will bring you any intimate detail about his personal life that you may want. Ask Lionel and he will devote his comment to boosting someone else. I asked Lionel what he thought of the 1940 films as compared to the silent pictures of 1909 and 1910 when he started performing before the cameras. And he turned the whole reply into a eulogy of Clark Gable. Here it is: “I am often asked whether or not the motion picture has improved. There is only one answer to that. Nothing stands still.…
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Clark for Sale
I have just added photos from the catalog of one of Clark’s estate auctions, that took place on December 15,1996 at Christie’s in Hollywood. This particular auction is well-known because despite the Academy’s pleading, Clark’s son put Clark’s only Oscar on the auction block. Steven Spielberg famously purchased it for $607,500 and donated it back to the Academy. Spielberg also purchased Clark’s personal copy of the Gone with the Wind script for $244,500 and kept it. Pictures of both the Oscar and the GWTW script are included as well as items such as Clark’s bathrobe, leather bed, golf clubs, poker chips, books from his library, his and Carole’s monogrammed sherry glasses and…
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Gossip Friday: Clark’s Rival
From September 1937: Clark Gable and Carole Lombard told us this one. They were coming away from the fights the other night when a newsboy–age ten–gave Carole a paper. Clark fished for a coin, but the boy stopped him. Giving the burly Gable–ordinarily a great favorite of youngsters his age–a dirty look, he said: “Keep your pennies, you big ham! I’m GIVING this paper to Miss Lombard–see?” New this week: Pictures in the gallery A rare article from 1932 in the Article Archive TV Listings have been updated through May
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Gossip Friday: Tuesday night in Hollywood
From February 1937: This is the thing that keeps Hollywood the town of enchanting contradiction and makes it the most unexplainable spot in the world. Take one particular Tuesday evening in Hollywood, for instance. At the Cocoanut Grove: Lights, music, champagne, movie stars, a Joan Bennett surprise party, a director and a blonde actress breaking their hearts for a love they can’t have. On a Laurel Canyon hillside: A barbecue, Carole Lombard and Clark Gable, Gary Cooper and Sandra, his wife, hot sizzling steaks, stars overhead, old-time songs, new-time stories and mustard. In the overflow meeting for a religious lecture: Director Frank Capra, Ginger Rogers and her mother, Sid Grauman,…
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Gossip Friday: Ann’s Ideal Man
A short article from June 1940 in which actress Ann Sheridan describes her ideal man: Right here I’d like to mention that I don’t go around describing, unsolicited, my masculine ideal to everyone I meet. What I mean is, I was asked by Movie Mirror to do this…so in describing the sort of man I would choose if I were to marry I’m contriving a sort of composite of several men I know and like and admire… He’d dance like Cesar Romero. The Romero dancing is in a class by itself. He’d have Joel McCrea’s physique–tall, square-shouldered, rangy and not an ounce of spare fat on him! I hate bay windows,…
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Gossip Friday: Clark’s Valentine
From September 1940: Happy-though-married Clark Gable keeps Carole Lombard’s dressing room filled with red roses. And Gene Raymond keeps Jeanette MacDonald well supplied with pink roses, pink being Jeanette’s favorite color. Lots of new stuff this week: New rare pictures in the gallery–hundreds added! A new article in the Article Archive by Norma Shearer describing her favorite male costars A new radio show in the Multimedia section–The Buccaneer from 1938